of this festival, which should be an occasion of joy. The reading had the wrong effect on them. 10–12 This festival had to receive its real character as a day of joy. So the people were sent to their homes to eat and drink, because it must be a day of rejoicing. The people should realize that in their joy in the Lord would lie their strength. Eat of the best, literally “eat of the fat,” which means the choicest and thus the best. Drink of the sweetest. The Hebrew for “sweetest” is mamtaqqîm. In